“First, have our caretaker step forward. What is your name?”

“D’ronda, your majesty.” She said shyly.

“Excellent. Then, D’ronda, for your unflinching defense of our next generation in the face of a vastly superior foe, I elevate you to the rank of Champion. Continue to be an example to us all.” With his words, a white light enveloped D’ronda. After it had passed, her muscles had a little more tone and her body looked just a bit sleeker.

“Thank you, your majesty.”

“Now, Angus. You have shown once again that the light siders are no match for a determined kobold. For defending our home and young against a superior group, slaying several of them in the process, and ending the battle with minimal losses of our kin, I hereby elevate you from Elite rank to Heroic.”

I saw the same glow envelope me, and the gathered crowd cheered wildly for a bit before the king calmed them down.

“Now, everyone please return to your lives.” He said, before being surrounded by his guards again and leaving. Several of the kobolds went to check on their kids before leaving, and many of them were congratulating D’ronda. While they were doing that, I was checking my notifications.

Level up x2

Mandatory Quest completed.

You have completed the mandatory quest, and gone above expectations. For your contributions, you will be given the material forfeits of the adventurers that broke the taboo. Should the remaining two choose to not have the taboo broken, you will receive two more 200 slot bags as compensation.

Congratulations!

For your deeds, you have been upgraded from Elite to Hero. From now on, every level up will increase all attributes by 2.

Skill

Old Level

New Level

Bonus effects

Mana Shockwave

Beginner lvl 3

Beginner lvl 4

Damage increased by 4%, durability damage reduced by 4%

Keen edge

Beginner lvl 5

Beginner lvl 6

18% damage, increased amputation chance

Thanatos finds your gift acceptable.

You gain 20 favor from offering a player with a higher levels death.

You gain 10 favor for killing your offering with [Reaper’s Edge].

You gain 10 favor for killing a player at full health with [Reaper’s Edge].

Total favor: 67/100

I didn’t make many skill gains, but being able to have extra attributes per level up was totally worth it. Wait a minute, I was already halfway to the maximum kobold level. What happens when I evolve? I had better ask Emily about this.

Emily,

I have a few issues that I need your help with. The first one is rather easy. I just got promoted from Elite to Hero. This comes with bonus attributes per level, but I was wondering what is going to happen when I evolve. Will I keep the hero title and the bonus attributes per level? Or will that all be reset?

The other issue is going to be with a new trap I worked on. Looking at it from the outside, it allowed me to kill a level 35 creature while I was level 18 without taking any damage. This would normally be game breaking, but I feel there are a few points that need to be made. First, I have a title that negates level difference penalties. The trap was also designed to specifically counter this creature, and was incredibly effective. It would be much less effective against others. Part of the reason it was so effective was that the creature was stuck in the trap, amplifying the damage it was able to do. If you look at the damage log, each spear of the trap only did 100 damage every two seconds. With a human sized target, only two spears maximum could strike, and a smart player would be able to use the wings of the spears themselves to escape the trap. Had the worm moved in backwards, it would also have been able to escape the trap. One last thing to note, the trap had to be manually activated. If I had waited too long, I would have been eaten by the worm.

Thanks,

Marty

Yawning, I sent the email off and headed to the inn. There had been far too much excitement for today. I wrote myself a note on the hints that Djarleen had given me, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten them. I was far too brain drained at the moment to ponder riddles. I didn’t even eat one of Alnoss’ dinners, instead eating one of the rations I had bought earlier and logging out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Well I’ll be damned, he is still with us!” Jon exclaimed as I wandered in to Café Oblivion.

“Hey there guys, sorry I’ve been incommunicado for a week.”

“I’m sure there is a good reason for it, so let’s hear it.” Phoebe said, slightly more curt than she normally was.

“Don’t mind her, she’s a little upset about her evolution scenario.”

“And I thought you weren’t going to say anything about it ‘til I was ready Jon.”

“Sorry hun, but we haven’t seen him in a week and you practically bit his head off. I just didn’t want him to think that we were all mad at him.” Through his explanation, Phoebe just crossed her arms and glared at him.

“It’s okay, I would be slightly upset too if one of you guys disappeared without a say so. Especially since we all had that. . . incident.” We all shivered thinking back to the celebration. “As for why I disappeared, I was selected by one of the guard captains of our city for ‘advanced special training.’ Sadistic bastards whacked me with spears for 10 hours a day.” I said, shuddering and rubbing absentmindedly at one of my shoulders that had taken quite a bit of trauma over my training week.

“You get the phantom pains too?” Derrick noticed.

“Huh?” I asked, before noticing that I was rubbing my arm. “Damn, when did I start doing that?”

“I don’t blame ya man. I had no problems dealing with the supposed 10% pain we actually receive from the game when I was able to go to reality every day. Ever since we have been in here I have felt phantom pain while logged out after terrible injuries.”

“That’s a slight relief. At least I’m not alone in this. You send in a report to Emily about it?”

“Oh good, you’re all here.” Emily said as she appeared next to me. “Now, what are we reporting to Emily and is it in addition to what you just sent me?”

“Marty is getting the same phantom pain issues that I was.” Derrick said.

“Explain.” She ordered, turning to me.

“Training week in the kobold city. I didn’t really think much of it until Derrick pointed it out, but that week I did feel sore when I woke up in my digital apartment. I was also just absentmindedly rubbing my arm in remembrance of the pain. That’s when Derrick noticed and said something.”

“Damnit.” She muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ll look into it, maybe the muscle stimulators were translating the extra exercise and increased from the baseline needed to maintain muscle mass. I’ll have to compare the data, perhaps I can pawn it off on a few techs. Can you give me a few days to work on this?”

“Sure.” We all chorused.

“Great, thanks for understanding guys. And Phoebe.” She said, nodding at her. “Before I go into the big reason I came here, I figured the question you just asked would be good to answer in front of everyone.” At the groups questioning looks, Emily continued. “Marty asked about evolutions affecting monster titles. By the way, congrats on getting the Hero title. You are the first to get that. Anyway, titles will transfer over when you evolve.”

“Oh great, I was worried about that.”

“Wait a second, what does the Hero title gain you Marty? And how much better is it than Phoebe’s Champion title?”

“Champion gives me two bonus attributes per level.” Phoebe said.

“Hero gives me two bonus points to each attribute per level.”

“You lucky bastard, how the hell did you get that? Save the king from certain doom?” Derrick asked.

“Not quite. I managed to take out a group of players after they kicked one of the monster children. You probably saw the global announcement about soul curses?” They all nodded. “Yeah, that was the aftermath.”

“Before you get going on that story, I need you all to sit down so I can explain a few things.” Emily interrupted. She pulled up a chair from a different table, and continued, “So we have spent the last week doing an intensive audit of everyone in the company. This all started with the alcohol code incident, and the company wants to apologize for everything you had to go through. We felt that just offering you money in compensation would be rather crass, and instead are offering to bring you on as employees permanently. We will also be matching anything you put up for retirement up to 10% of your pay, and the company will be paying to enroll you in our highest tier of health insurance at no cost to yourselves for the duration of your employment.”

We all were gobsmacked at that announcement. Something huge must have gone down, if the company were willing to kiss our butts this much. “Can we have a few days to think on this? It’s kind of a huge offer you just hit us with, and we want to make sure we aren’t missing anything.” Jon said, while Phoebe and the rest of us bobbleheaded along with his explanation.

“That’s fine, we have left tablets with the offer in your apartments. Simply sign or send us an email with your questions. Now, about the explanation. It turns out, we have several people who have recently been fired for industrial espionage, and they are being prosecuted to the full extent possible. That includes charges for assault on the four of you, and we have several experts testifying to the pain you were all subjected to. You won’t be required to testify, but we have turned over copies of the video of your reactions to the authorities. We started with the tech who installed the code for the alcohol consumption. Data logs show that a day after our QC department reviewed the codes, which should have matched the in game variables for alcohol, he changed it so that the alcohol variables were like a minor child drinking Dwarf Slammer spirit. We found a $50,000 deposit in one of his bank accounts, but it was wired in from a numbered off shore account, so we can’t say for sure which of our competitors actually paid him. Since then, we have done a company-wide audit, including everyone from the C** officer level down to janitorial services. Ten more suspicious people were identified and terminated.”

“I’m glad that is taken care of, but how are you going to guarantee that it isn’t going to happen again?” Derrick asked, noticeably angry.

“Random audits of employees to try and catch spies, but for more proactive examples we are adding a few security measures. Any code that is altered after QC signs off on it is immediately flagged and prevented from being implemented. Code not signed off by QC won’t be implemented, and there has to be a minimum of three names signing off on code before implementation.”

“Seems like you have it covered then.” Derrick nodded, as did the rest of us.

“Whew.” Emily sighed in relief. “Thanks for being understanding about this. Is there anything else I can do for you guys before I go?”

“Do all evolution scenarios have to be so emotionally draining?” Phoebe blurted.

“I’ve seen your evolution and Jon’s. I’m sorry, you guys took some of the hardest paths but in return got some of the best rewards. I will see if the developers can build a few scenarios that don’t rely on traumatic experiences.” Emily looked around, and though Phoebe was obviously unsatisfied, headed out.

“Damnit!” I cursed. “I forgot to ask about them nerfing my trap. Ah well, I’ll get her next time. So, can we hear about your evolution Phoebe? Or would you rather wait a few days.”

“C’mon hun, it might help to get the story off your chest.” Jon cajoled her.

“Fine. It all started when I was selected to lead a field hunt. . .”